


Ulula cum lupis, cum quibus esse cupis

by Pistol



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:03:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22041106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pistol/pseuds/Pistol
Summary: Stiles dies from time to time.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 7
Kudos: 135





	Ulula cum lupis, cum quibus esse cupis

Stiles dies from time to time. Some days he isn't fast enough, some days he's in the wrong place at the wrong time. Each time his body goes still, they finish their battle of the week and then put whatever is left of Stiles in the ground, and each time the earth gives them back a living Stiles. The earth - more specifically the woods behind the Hale house - _won't_ let Stiles die.

"I try not to think about it," Stiles admits to Derek, "but sometimes it's all I can think about." He's naked, scarless, and he doesn't feel a chill but still appreciates the blanket Scott throws around his shoulders as the pack gently herds him back towards the Hale house. 

Stiles is breaking a rule - the one where people don't talk about how he has a habit of dying and then being found walking around the woods in a daze a few hours later. The wolves know that Stiles never remembers his deaths, _and perhaps it's for the best,_ Deaton had said in a weary voice the first time they found Stiles. Scott and Derek hadn't said anything at the time, but Stiles could tell they agreed.

+

"It's not a reward," Deaton had told Stiles when they were finally alone, "it's not a superpower or luck. It's a _punishment_. There are rules to the world and before your death you broke one." He looks at Stiles the way Lydia looks at people when she starts speaking in numbers - like Deaton is trying not to show how much he hopes that Stiles not only understands but can comprehend what he's saying.

"I broke the rules," Stiles agrees. "I'm being punished."

+

It's Lydia who has the idea to tell the tale. She whispers her stories to the hunters in the dark woods, spins her tales to visiting packs, and confides in the witches who own the local bookstores and happen to also be notorious gossips. Lydia wears shirts that show off her scars, shirts that showcase them to make sure her listeners understand just how serious her words are. When Lydia goes off to college she takes her stories with her, painting their little city and smaller pack as much more that they are- more than anything that can be found in any of the old families' bestiaries. 

_They are protected by something immortal, something unstoppable and terrible,_ Lydia says in a way that makes people spread her tale whether they believe her or not.

It brings a type of security to Beacon Hills that had been missing since the old days, when the Hale name still meant something. It's not perfect though- from time to time there are groups bold enough to stomp through the woods in hopes of testing the stories. From time to time when the pack is faced with bravado and bloodlust, Stiles _allows_ himself to be killed. Lydia says the tales will be all the more powerful if the teller talks about how the creature - how _Stiles_ hadn't feared death, but welcomed it. 

"The wolves won't be as understanding as I am," Stiles warns the curious souls who come to test him with their claws, swords, and teeth. 

+

The number of people who seek first hand knowledge shrinks with each year that passes, partially because no one leaves the woods unconvinced and partially because Derek only ever leaves one survivor - _mostly_ alive - to pass on the tale.

+

When Danny dies the woods don't return him to the pack. No one was expecting them to, but Jackson still stares through the endless snarl of trees looking, hoping for a sign of his friend.

"Why you?" Jackson chokes out when Stiles finds him leaning defeatedly against the remains of a great oak. "Why do you get to come back? Why are _you_ so lucky?"

"I-"

Jackson cuts him off with a snarl, "Why can't this stupid town care about anyone but-"

"I'm sorry," Stiles says, meaning every word, "I never asked-"

"Just go away," Jackson begs. "I don't - I _can't_ look at you right now, Stiles."

+

Stiles dreams. Not the way he used to: ever since he walked out of the woods his dreams have been crystal clear and impossible to forget. In his dreams Stiles looks into the future, watches his friends die, and sometimes he looks into the past and watches his own deaths.

"You'll bury them all," an image of himself tells Stiles just seconds before a wolf rips out his throat in the mirror image of Stiles' third death. 

Stiles reaches up, running his hands over his throat - whole and smooth - no signs of the trauma that left him spasming and coughing on his own blood until the blackness came.

"Have you learned your lesson yet?" The blood splattered wolf lisps around his fangs, golden eyes watching Stiles' double as his body starts to still.

Stiles looks behind the wolf to where Derek and Isaac are barely holding off eight omegas. Derek is screaming and Isaac looks ready to cry even though they'd seen Stiles walk away from death twice already. Isaac had always, will always, take Stiles' deaths to heart no matter how many times Stiles walks out of the woods.

Across the field Isaac loses three fingers into the snapping maw of an omega. The fingers, like Stiles, will return.

"If this is a lesson I think I should probably warn you that I don't test well," Stiles tells the wolf.

+

Jackson is pale, his hands shaking when Stiles walks of the woods under a waxing moon.

"I'm sorry," he whispers.

Stiles cocks his head to the side, "What for?" He knows what for, Jackson had more than enough time to pull Stiles to the side, but there had been anger and hesitation in his eyes and Stiles' back was broken when the kelpie charged him. 

"Jackson," Derek says his name like it's a warning, and Jackson closes his mouth. After all, they don't talk about Stiles' deaths. The burden of memory is one the pack believes they alone will carry.

"Nothing," Jackson lies, clasping Stiles on the shoulder. His hands are still shaking.

+

Lydia comes back to Beacon Hills, much to everyone's surprise. 

"What, no Fields Medal?" Stiles jokes as he helps her unpack her bags in the room she had claimed in the rebuilt Hale house ages ago.

Lydia laughs, but Stiles catches the way her eyes flicker over the left side of his face. He pretends not to notice her examination the same way he pretends to not remember the bite of the arrow, the heat of the fire, and the scream that seemed torn from Lydia the first time he died. 

"Like you're one to judge, what was it again that you dressed up as for career day in second grade?" She feigns deep thought.

"Hey, I'll have you know that being a princess is still a life goal of mine."

Lydia laughs, an honest sound that still pulls on Stiles' heartstrings. They continue to unpack, Stiles cramming random things in drawers and Lydia pulling them back out and putting them on hangers. It's comfortable.

"I guess my priorities changed," Lydia says out of nowhere as she smooths the fabric of a sweater before hanging it up in the closet Derek had designed with Lydia's wardrobe in mind. There are touches of Derek's love for his pack in each room of the house - rooms they all pretended hadn't been made with one person in mind. Stiles' room is the only room in the house lacking touches of customization, but he's seen the bookcases built into Derek's own room. The desk space and shelves that go unused.

Lydia's hand lingers on the coat hanger. "I figured out I didn't need people to give me an award to feel like I had accomplished something." She gives Stiles a smile that makes her look older than her years. "Childhood aspirations are important, but they don't have to define us."

Stiles frowns critically at his reflection, turning from side to side in the upright mirror. "I don't know, I feel like a tiara would really bring this outfit together." From his left a balled up yellow dress comes flying and hits him in the face.

+

The forty-third time Stiles dies Derek kisses him with a bloody mouth just before the blackness comes. When Stiles walks out of the woods Derek doesn't talk about the kiss, about how he had screamed and begged Stiles to not die, to _stop making me watch this happen to you_.

When Derek walks Stiles back up to the house he reaches out, taking one of Stiles' hands in his. 

"Worried?" The words dance precariously between teasing and cruelty.

"Always," Derek says seriously.

+

The thing about werewolves is - it's really hard to kill them without using wolfsbane or cutting them in half. Over the years Stiles has seen Isaac's guts, bits of Erica's brain, and Boyd's ribcage. He's seen them heal, seen them survive. He worries about them, but there's a certain level of injury he just doesn't get all that concerned over anymore.

The crunching sound Derek's neck makes when the troll grabs him isn't on any scale of injury Stiles' is familiar with.

Stiles yells, wordless and full of rage when Derek collapses on the floor. At the corners of his perception the blackness is waiting. Stiles grabs ahold of it and _pulls._

+

Later they break the rules, telling him that they aren't sure what killed him. They show him Derek, alive, if a little banged up, who kisses Stiles until Erica starts singing bad porno-esque music. When Derek finally lets him go, too exhausted to do more than sleep and heal, Boyd walks Stiles into the woods and shows Stiles the remains of the troll.

A brown sludge leaks from the troll's eyes, nose, and mouth. The body itself is bent into an unnatural shape, concave in some places.

"He crumpled," Boyd says without inflection. "His bones broke and his face started leaking blood, but no one was touching him."

"Weird," Stiles chokes out.

Boyd hums, nudging at the troll's arm with his boot. "Stiles, do you remember when you die?"

"You know I don't."

Boyd snorts. "The others rely too much on their ears. The heart isn't the only tell that people have when they lie."

"Boyd-"

"Do you remember what happens _after_ you die?" 

"Boyd, listen to me-"

"Anger and adrenaline are strong motivators but sometimes … it's like we _can't_ lose after you die. It's like the world reshuffles itself in our favor. Convenient weapons are suddenly within arm's reach, our injuries don't seem so bad, and whoever we're fighting goes down in a matter of minutes." Boyd sighs, "We've gotten better since this all started, we've gotten good. But…"

"Not that good," Stiles fills in the blank.

"Yeah. So you ever gonna tell us what's going on?"

Stiles stuffs his hands into his pockets, rocking forward on the balls of his feet. "Would you believe me if I said I was being punished by cosmic powers beyond our ken?"

Boyd seems to roll that idea around but Stiles leaves before he comes up with an answer.

+

Stiles bypasses home and goes directly to Deaton's.

"Boyd has some idea about what's going on," he says by way of greeting, "and I'm apparently turning into River Tam."

Deaton takes it all in with a calm frown. "River Tam?"

"No power in the 'verse can stop me," Stiles wiggles his fingers in the air. "Oh, and I killed a troll. _With my brain._"

+

Stiles knows he's getting stronger. What was once was a spark inside him is now a fire burning bright in his veins. What he doesn't know is how exactly the two of the five information-gathering words fit in there. The who, the when, the where he knows - but the what and the why still remain elusive.

"I can't understand it anymore than I could before," Deaton admits after another barrage of tests. "I have no idea what is happening to you or what will happen next."

+

The next change comes in spring, in the form of a door unlocking itself for Stiles. 

Isaac screeches when the door to his room opens, quickly pull his blanket up and over his lap while Stiles about faces and forgets all about asking if Isaac wanted pizza.

+

After Erica stops laughing and Isaac stops sulking they end up ordering pizza and testing out the new ability. Bike locks, computer passwords, and even car doors open themselves up for Stiles with the slightest hint he wants in.

Erica suggests a life of crime while Scott is already gleefully planning the superhero costumes he and Stiles will don while they fight crime and open doors for people who lost their keys. When the excitement dies down Stiles excuses himself, curling up around Derek on their bed.

"Erica seems to have her heart set on you two becoming bank robbers," Derek murmurs sleepily.

"I think my dad would have some objections about that," Stiles points out.

"Good, I'm not thrilled at the idea of having to make do with conjugal visits."

+

There's a door in Stiles' dreams. It wasn't there before, but it shows up in every dream he's had since interrupting Isaac's alone time.

Stiles avoids the door like the plague.

**Author's Note:**

> Was previously posted, then taken down. Now it's back up. Beware the errors and typos, I suspect the files I found on my old harddrive are the pre-beta versions.  
Please don't steal any of my silly stories and change some names around and then try to sell them as books on Amazon or I'm gonna have to take everything down again.


End file.
